January 2026 Social Impact Report

It is that time of year again when I look back through my diary and add up the hours spent volunteering, offering discounted work, and supporting fellow coaching professionals.

This year has included a couple of significant factors that have limited my bandwidth for social impact work. As a result, my volunteering is down 16 percent and my discounted work down 30 percent compared with the previous year. That said, 2024 was a record high for volunteering, largely because I was wrapping up some non-executive roles while starting others, meaning I was double hatting for a period. In that context, this year’s figures represent a return to a more typical range.

Two things in particular have taken a substantial amount of my attention. The first has been continuing through the accelerated route to Chartered Psychologist status. The process has involved periods of waiting, evolving guidance, and a degree of clarification around expectations, all of which have required additional reflection, evidence gathering, and refinement of submissions. I am hopeful that this journey will reach a conclusion in 2026, whatever the eventual outcome.

The second has been a much more positive focus: buying and setting up The Rowe House with Nick. It is somewhere we can enjoy ourselves, that clients can use for away days, and that I can use for coaching retreats. In time, it should also set us up well for retirement when that eventually rolls around.

Before going into more detail, I want to say a genuine thank you to my corporate clients. What many people do not see is that working with me creates a ripple effect of social impact. Your engagement directly enables this work.

This year, the charities I have supported through discounted work have come from across the UK and span priority areas including:

• Learning disabled people

• Mental health

• Young people

• Conservation and the environment

• Adult social care

• Women and girls

• LGBTQIA plus communities

• Education

• Homelessness

• Domestic violence

• European Policy / Collaboration

A particularly important strand of work this year has been my role with ACEVO as the referral psychologist and executive coach for their CEO in Crisis Service. This provides support to non profit CEOs during some of their most difficult moments. The work is vital in helping high performing leaders remain effective under exceptional pressure.

Alongside coaching work, I have supported non profit leaders to develop their own coaching capability, including delivering a recent programme focused on building a coaching culture.

Here are some quotes from participants:

"Thank you so much Gary was brilliant, he was very helpful, approachable, had a wealth of knowledge, the training was trailered nicely to our service. It has really increased my confidence as a leader and define the type of leader I want to be. The strategies I've already used both for myself and with colleagues have been very helpful."

"The coaching training Gary provided was brilliant! It has already been so beneficial to my practice and different service's leadership teams. Gary's style of delivery was also so helpful, he had a lovely approach. The training was tailored to our service & acknowledged/tailored different professional backgrounds present. It was also a perfect balance between being; informative, theoretical, practical, engaging, reflective & personalised. Often I've had training where enough time isn't left for practical approaches & how to apply what we've learnt, however this covered it perfectly. It's also provided us with so many resources to use with colleagues within our services."

"I learned so much from Gary's coaching training, tools, approaches and information I will take with me in work and my personal life. Gary made the sessions really fun, warm and safe. The content was fantastic!"

Here's 2025 in Context

Volunteering

Photo Credit Liz (Henson) Hall https://www.lizhenson.co.uk

This year I have continued to Chair the Corporation Board of Hopwood Hall College and University Centre. Alongside governance responsibilities, I have had the pleasure of attending graduation ceremonies, prize giving evenings, and employer engagement events.

One particular highlight was seeing the Principal and CEO, Julia Heap, awarded an OBE at the end of 2025, a well deserved recognition for her leadership and for the work of the wider team.

To maintain balance and protect some non working time, I concluded my board roles at the end of the academic year with The Apprentice Academy and Victorious Academies Trust, while continuing my involvement with the General Assembly of the University of Manchester. In theory, this should allow me to rebalance 2026 more effectively.

Supporting Coaching Professionals

As in previous years, I have also tracked the time spent supporting other coaching professionals through training, supervision, and mentor coaching. This year totalled 22 days, largely supporting those undertaking PG Certificate or Masters programmes in coaching, as well as supervision work. I also continued to host the free walk for coaching professionals throughout 2025 and am currently considering what might be possible in 2026.

So, there we are. Another year in summary. 2025 was undoubtedly a year of sustained effort, and I was initially concerned about what the totals might show. I am pleased, though, to see that things have broadly balanced out.

Thank you for reading, and here is to even more in 2026.

* Methodology: I count direct hours of working and multiply this by 1.2 as there is nearly always additional preparation, travel and reading time necessary. I then divide this time into half day units of 3.5 hours in order to get to my totals.